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Delft Mama of the week: Sandra

Delft MaMa of the week, Sandra

Sandra and her husband Nicola met over seven years ago when they were both fresh international students at the TU Delft. With a background in Computer Science, she made her masters in Management of Technology and is currently fully embracing motherhood with their three-year-old son Gerardo and a nine-month-old daughter Minerva. Sandra joined the Delft MaMa community when Gerardo was about half a year old but she wishes she had joined earlier. “The first few months of being a mom were really overwhelming. All the time I saw mothers on the streets with ‘omas’ around and thought I couldn’t have that being away from both families. When I joined Delft MaMa it made things easier”, Sandra says. The community made her feel welcome, but it also helped to get to know individual mothers who previously had been in the same exact position. Once she met with mothers who have gone through different phases with their children, it dissipated Sandra’s fears. She tells how her sister is about to become a mother for the second time in a city of five million people, but hasn’t managed to find a community of mothers where she would feel like home. “With DMM community you are sure you share the fact that you are an expat and you are raising children here, or maybe you are Dutch, but you are raising your children in an international way. It makes it easier for you to find people with the same ideals and goals”, Sandra joyfully says.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Sandra

‘Welkom Hier’ – help refugee families in Delft 17th September 2016

Welkom Hier folder

Delft MaMa is contributing to the Refugee welcome event ‘Welkom Hier‘ on Saturday 17th September at the Theater De Veste by providing children’s activities for the children of the refugee families, as well as any children from the Delft community who are attending this free event.

Please come along to the event with your families if you would like to contribute to making these new members of the Delft community feel welcomed!Read More »‘Welkom Hier’ – help refugee families in Delft 17th September 2016

Delft Mama of the week: Manuela

Manuela and her family

Whenever I interview moms of the week, I ask them to nominate one or more mothers to feature in the future. This time I was going to meet with one of those mothers who has been recommended to me over and over again. Manuela is well known among Delft Mamas, not least because of her collaborations with other mothers for work. She’s a mother of three girls: a six-year-old Sophia, Mireya who is almost five and a three-year-old Elodie. When she moved to Delft in 2010, she knew from her several previous moves that she needed to find a community around her the sooner the better, and she was referred to Delft MaMa where she instantly found her place.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Manuela

Game of Potties

There are lots of methods about potty training your children from blocking your agendas for a week, stacking up your fridge and locking yourselves in the living room – to holding your baby on top of the toilet and whistling. Whatever your method ends up being, the warmer months are possibly the most auspicious time of the year to do so. Accidents are much easier to clean up and you don’t have to worry about your children not wearing enough, or wetting their pants when it’s freezing cold.

I remember hearing about six-month-old babies being potty trained when my daughter was a few years old. To me that seemed like a distant dream and now as a mother of three, I can admit that’s what it was for us: a far fetched fantasy, not our cup of pee tea. Our process of potty training didn’t include locking ourselves in, shushing or whistling to encourage the flow, but it included so many other phases.Read More »Game of Potties

Delft Mama of the week: Renée

Renée and her two girls

It was a chilly Tuesday morning that was going to turn into a warm afternoon. I met our mom of the week, Renée, at café Kek in the center of Delft right after she had dropped her daughters Sophia (9) and Isabella (7) off to school. She was cycling from Ypenburg, which by land belongs to The Hague, but the phone numbers were the familiar 015 of Delft. If she could have, Renée would have bought a house that was built half in Delft and half in The Hague. Ypenburg was the closest compromise. Luckily for her, the day was going to be a warm day (warm for Dutch September). Renée wasn’t quite ready to give up her feeling of summer just yet, after having spent the entire holiday in Australia with her girls.
Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Renée

Alternative gift ideas

Hot air baloon

If, like me, you struggle to think of suitable presents for your spouse for their birthday, Christmas, father’s (or mother’s) day, how about something different like an activity or experience instead of something tangible? You’ll be amazed at how much there is to do locally. Here are some suggestions for you.Read More »Alternative gift ideas

Delft Mama of the week: Caroline

Our mom of the week, Caroline, invited me to her house for coffee. She was raised by a Colombian mother, so it was an invitation I absolutely had to accept. The smell of freshly baked something good hit me when I stepped in the hallway of her lovely home. Her children, Isabella (3) and Jack (8 months) were playing in the living room under a skylight while she prepared their treats – and mine.

Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Caroline

A refreshing recipe for a hot week (and the importance of reading supermarket magazines)

Gazpacho

Every time I go to a supermarket, I cannot help but bring at least one copy of each of the free magazines they have on display. It improves my Dutch vocabulary, teaches me grammar structures whilst it  helps find the answer to the “what’s for dinner?” question that I ask myself (and anyone with ears) almost daily.

As crazy as it reads, I plan my shopping in accordance with the  magazine I got last. Say if I went to the Plus a week ago, next week I will make sure to swing by the Jumbo. If only for a hand of bananas and a magazine.Read More »A refreshing recipe for a hot week (and the importance of reading supermarket magazines)

Ride my bike

Bike at the Oostpoort

“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike…” sang Queen years ago.  Statistics say this is what you have to do while living in Holland. There are more bikes in The Netherlands than people. Babies are transported on a bike as soon as they can sit. Cycling in a tight skirt and high heels to work is absolutely normal. Grandmothers do it. Politicians and businessmen do it. So you should do it too. Ride your bike!

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Delft Mama of the week: Lucie

Even though our Delft Mama of the week, Lucie, has a BA in English as a second language and she did a master’s in English in women studies, she never dreamed of setting up an international network of moms until she did just that. Our mom of the week is the mother of a 12-year-old Loic, but she is also the founding mother of Delft MaMa. Now nine years, awards and countless nominations later, the group Lucie set up has expanded from twenty moms to several hundreds of parents and her legacy is living stronger than she had ever imagined.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Lucie

We’re so thankful Delft was recommended to us

The American couple Lisa and Dan VanBuskirk moved to Delft in 2008, about 350 years after Dan’s ancestors left Holland. The couple have been married for 12 years and dated nearly four years before that. They met when they were both in the U.S. military and it was Dan’s military assignment that brought them to the Netherlands for four years. “We had both lived in the United States our entire lives, though we did travel internationally, including to the Netherlands for work and pleasure. We thought Delft was beautiful when we arrived and for our entire stay.”

Read More »We’re so thankful Delft was recommended to us

Five tips for raising global citizens

I know from my Facebook feed that there can sometimes be a sense of hopelessness and fear when the news shows us so much conflict and tragedy in the world.  However I feel we all have more power than we realise as parents, especially when we aim to consciously raise global citizens.  Follow that link to an interesting article from Wikipedia, which describes how more and more people are forming an identity with a “global community” above their identity as a citizen of a particular nation or place. This wonderful international community we have within Delft MaMa is full of living examples what it can be like to be a global citizen.Read More »Five tips for raising global citizens

Delft Mama of the week: Agnès

Delft Mama of the week, Agnès, is for the second time on the blog spotlight after her love story with her partner was published last April. Their son, Max, was born in Delft, but Agnès believes that motherhood would have changed her tempo even if they lived somewhere else. “I’m going at half a speed of what I used to. I used to be always on schedule, because I was working and I had an extensive social life in Barcelona where I come from. I had my family there, so most Sundays we had the Sunday roast at my grandparents place. I was always squeezing a lot of things to one. When we moved to Delft, suddenly I had an empty diary. I have been able to fill that agenda with different stuff of my interest, like the Indian Film Festival in the Hague that I am going to take part in the coordination of. But I’m also taking less commitments. I do like to have a slower tempo.”Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Agnès

A table for six (includes original recipes from Anish Patil)


photo intro

Delft MaMa has officially inaugurated the long awaited international cooking club.
Thursday the 21st of July, a mixed group of mums and dads gathered together to cook under the guidance and supervision of Anish Patil, who together with Viji Kannan will coordinate the club.
This very first session took us to India, where Anish comes from. We made a culinarily travel along the 7.571 kilometers India’s coastline and learnt how to use a star ingredient: coconut.

coconut milk

Read More »A table for six (includes original recipes from Anish Patil)

Living abroad gives you new angles

This year Kerry and Arne have been married for eight years, but the story of this couple started already back in 2006 in Turin, Italy, where they both traveled as part of the National Speed Skating Team of Canada to join the Olympics. They returned home as national sport heroes and most of all – in love. Kerry and Arne married in 2008 and being in their late 20’s, the couple retired from sport and were given the chance to pursue other goals in life.

Read More »Living abroad gives you new angles

Delft Mama of the week: Carolina

If you don’t bump into Carolina enjoying the tranquil streets of Delft, you might just see her enjoying her day in Café de Bonte Haas in Wateringen, as she lists the area around Den Hoorn as one of her favorites. She has felt the same way every since she first visited the Netherlands after she started dating a Dutch man who was working with a temporary contract in her hometown of Córdoba, Argentina.Read More »Delft Mama of the week: Carolina

How to film the family vacation

The Meivakantie (spring break) was coming and going so quickly that before we knew… now it’s almost time for the Summer break! So I hereby pronounce this the perfect time to brush up on some of the basics of film making.

I just know that not even that deep down (in fact, it’ll show pretty much on the surface) you’ll all cherish your bits and pieces you’ve filmed about your family in the coming years. Now imagine: you can have a fun, short, fresh video that summarizes all those adventures… how fun would that be? Here is how to make a Summer Trailer 🙂Read More »How to film the family vacation